What is AIR?
AIR is a restaurant operating system: POS, KDS, direct ordering, loyalty, reservations, waitlist, menu SEO, reporting, and AI workflow in one subscription.
The questions restaurant owners ask before trusting a new operating system.
AIR is POS, direct ordering, SEO, loyalty, reservations, delivery controls, and AI workflow in one place. This page is the honest version: what works on day one, what needs setup, and what is still coming. The beta opens October 12.
Day-one clarity
What has to work before the first service.
Revenue clarity
How direct ordering, SEO, loyalty, and delivery conversion fit.
Roadmap honesty
What is live, what is beta, and what restaurants should keep.
Buying AIR
Plans, pricing, and what is included
Why two plans, $199 and $299?
Everything is on both plans, except the delivery-app connection (DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub), which comes with AIR Express. They also differ in included AI phone calls and the per-call rate. AIR: 200 AI phone calls included, then $0.50 a call. AIR Express: 500 AI phone calls included, then $0.25 a call. Both are month to month.
How does the beta work?
One hundred restaurants, brought live in waves of ten, starting October 12. Setup is free for as long as it takes. The first 30 days are free from the day you download AIR, then $99 a month for 12 months; after that, $199 or $299 a month, month to month.
Is direct online ordering really included?
Yes. Zero-commission online ordering on your own website, including delivery by your own drivers, on both plans. Guests can order from AIR-hosted ordering pages or from a website AIR enhances for you.
Do you take a percentage of my online orders?
No. Zero commission on your own online orders, on both plans. Payment processing is separate on both plans: your processor or ours.
What is billed separately?
AI phone calls past your included calls ($0.50 or $0.25 a call), payment processing (your processor or ours), and some third-party costs, shown as they happen.
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes. The AIR subscription is month to month, and AIR is designed to earn the restaurant every month. AI-R Pay card processing is the one thing with a term: a 1-year agreement with NMI, the processor, not with AIR.
Cutover
Getting live without breaking service
How long does setup take?
As long as it takes, and setup is free the whole time. How long depends on menu complexity, printers, payment terminals, table maps, staff training, delivery integrations, and phone and text approvals. Your first 30 days are free from the day you download AIR.
Can we run AIR beside our current POS before switching?
Yes. The safest path is parallel testing: import the menu, check modifiers and pricing, verify printers, run test orders, then schedule the real cutover. Test orders are part of setup, and setup is free.
What has to be ready on day one?
Payments, terminals, menu, modifiers, tax, printers, receipts, kitchen routing, floor map, staff PINs, and order entry on iPad and phone. Everything else can ramp after the restaurant can safely serve guests.
What can wait until day 30, 60, or 90?
Plate costing, inventory confidence, and smart shopping lists get stronger after AIR has real operating data — give it your descriptions, recipes, invoice photos, and sales and it works out cost per plate over about a month. Deeper SEO reporting, social posting, and wider marketing automation are still being built, and your brief says so until they are live.
Do you help with the cutover?
Yes. We bring restaurants live in waves of ten so every beta operator gets hands-on setup help. AIR also includes a cutover plan so owners can see what is done, what needs verification, and what can wait.
When can we go live?
The beta opens October 12 and we onboard in waves of ten, up to one hundred restaurants. Tell us the week you would like to go live and we will fit you into a wave.
POS
Service, payments, hardware, and printers
Does AIR replace my POS?
Yes. AIR includes POS, KDS, table map, coursing, expo, receipts, modifiers, staff PINs, and order entry on iPad and phone.
Can I use my existing iPads?
Usually, yes. AIR runs on standard iPads and phones, so you keep the hardware and printers you already own.
Which payment processors does AIR support?
AIR works with Square or Stripe at their published rates, with no AIR markup. Keep your own processor if you have one, so you stay flexible as rates change.
Does AIR print kitchen tickets and receipts?
Yes. Printer setup is one of the most important cutover checks. AIR supports kitchen routing, receipt printing, auth-slip settings, and fallback planning.
Can AIR handle different printer routing by channel?
That is the goal: dine-in, direct online, phone, DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, and KitchenHub orders should route to the right kitchen and receipt printers.
What happens if Wi-Fi goes down?
The target architecture is web printing first, with local fallback options where the restaurant needs them. We plan cutovers around the actual network and printer layout.
Website
Direct ordering, SEO, and the restaurant website
Is a website included?
AIR can host or enhance a restaurant website as part of the plan. The goal is to include website plus online ordering without adding another vendor bill.
Do we have to redesign our current website?
No. The first step is to audit the current site, keep what is working, and add direct ordering, menu SEO, schema, and conversion paths. A rebrand can come later.
What does built-in SEO mean?
AIR structures menu items, categories, ordering paths, schema, local business data, and internal links so Google can understand the restaurant and menu.
How do you prove SEO work is improving?
AIR is building a tracking loop: baseline grade, changes made, indexed pages, ranking movement, direct-order starts, reservations, loyalty signups, and 7/30/90-day reporting.
Can AIR help convert DoorDash guests to direct guests?
Yes. AIR uses direct-order links, receipt paths, QR inserts, loyalty, and future delivery-channel reporting to move repeat guests back to the restaurant's owned channel.
Can reservations and waitlist live on the website?
Yes. AIR can provide reservation and waitlist flows, and restaurants can also keep or embed existing providers when that is the better path.
AI
Your assistant and phone answering
What is the assistant?
One assistant across the whole system. It is called Ask AI-R until you give it a name of your own. It uses the restaurant's own data and workflows, and can focus on CFO, Ops, or Marketing questions. It drafts; you approve. It can never touch the bank.
What can I ask it?
Examples: What were sales yesterday? What item should we push tonight? Did Robbie clock in? Which DoorDash issues need attention? Are we better off paying for OpenTable or running local ads?
How does phone answering work?
Your assistant answers the phone. It takes pickup orders, books reservations, sends links, and hands off to staff when a person should take over. Both plans answer your phone: 200 calls a month on AIR, 500 on AIR Express, then $0.50 or $0.25 a call.
Can the assistant take real menu orders on the phone?
Yes, once the menu, modifiers, hours, channel availability, loyalty, and handoff rules are correct. Chan Nara takes phone orders this way every night; we turn it on for you when your setup checks out.
Why is phone answering part of the plan rather than its own product?
A phone agent has to quote the right menu, modifiers, hours, prices, reservation rules, handoffs, loyalty, and kitchen flow. It works because it is the same assistant that already knows your restaurant.
Do we have to turn phone answering on during the first week?
No. A good launch path is shadow mode first: let it listen, test menu recognition, run QA, collect corrections, then turn it on when the restaurant is confident.
Delivery
DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, and direct delivery
Does AIR integrate with DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub?
Yes, with AIR Express: DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub connect through one connection. Both plans take direct orders and delivery by your own drivers. For Chan Nara, KitchenHub is the API path for marketplace access.
Can AIR sync delivery menu prices?
Yes, on AIR Express, where the delivery apps are connected. AIR includes channel pricing so restaurants can protect margins by platform instead of manually editing every marketplace.
Can AIR pause channels or adjust prep times?
AIR is building service pace controls. Some platforms limit what can be changed after an order is accepted, so the best flow may be queueing orders briefly, setting the right time, then accepting.
Can AIR dispute delivery chargebacks?
That one is coming, not built yet. The plan is to monitor delivery reports and help dispute invalid chargebacks from POS evidence. Until it ships, your brief marks it as coming.
Can AIR support local delivery from the restaurant website?
That is the goal. We are exploring delivery dispatch partners such as Shipday for restaurants that want direct delivery from their own website.
Data
Food cost, inventory, loyalty, and reporting
Does loyalty work on day one?
Yes. Loyalty can start on day one. The richer reporting gets better after the restaurant has 30 days of orders, redemptions, and guest behavior.
When does food cost become useful?
On day one. Purchases divided by food revenue is your true food cost today, with no recipe precision at all. Recipes, invoices and vendor prices come next — they explain the gap between what a plate should cost and what you actually spent.
Can AIR scan invoices?
Yes. AIR is designed to use invoices to update vendor costs and eventually connect purchasing, plate costs, waste, and shopping lists.
Can AIR replace accounting or payroll?
Not yet. AIR can support timeclock and exports, but restaurants should keep accounting and payroll software until replacement workflows are truly ready.
What reports matter most early?
Day one: sales, orders, payments, printer status, and service flow. Day 30: loyalty, food cost confidence, delivery margin, SEO movement, and staff habits.
Roadmap
Coming soon and beta expectations
What is coming, and not built yet?
Google Business Profile reports and Google Ads, social posting, generated menu images, multi-location benchmarking, chargeback disputes, deeper marketing automation, and richer SEO reporting. Each one is marked as coming in your morning brief until the day it is live.
What will social posting and menu images do?
The plan is to generate menu-item images and short videos, create campaign assets, and schedule social posts using live menu, specials, loyalty, and website content. It is on the roadmap, not live.
Is AIR finished?
AIR runs a real restaurant every night and the beta opens October 12. Day-one operating workflows are the priority, and anything still being built shows up in your brief marked as such rather than as a promise.
Why should a restaurant join the beta?
Setup is free for as long as it takes, your first 30 days are free from the day you download AIR, and then it is $99 a month for 12 months. You also get hands-on setup help in a wave of ten and a direct line into what gets built next.
Still deciding?
The fastest answer is to run AIR with your menu.
One hundred restaurants, ten at a time, starting October 12. Setup is free, your first 30 days are free from the day you download, and then $99 a month for 12 months. There is also a demo if you want to click around first.